Tag: Carlos Newton

Throwback Thursday is a new recurring column that pays tribute to the stars of an upcoming UFC PPV by taking a look back at some of their earliest defining moments. For our inaugural edition, we focus on Dan Henderson’s middleweight tournament-winning effort at UFC 17 (in his promotional debut, no less) ahead of his UFC 173 co-main event clash with Daniel Cormier this weekend.

What can be said about Dan Henderson that hasn’t already been said about Bill Brasky, or Chuck Norris? A poor way to start a retrospective, I know, but the fact is, the inventor and sole proprietor of the “H-Bomb” has one of the most well-documented yet somehow mythologized careers in MMA. From his back-to-back Olympic runs in ’92 and ’96 to his reign as the one and only concurrent double-title holder in PRIDE, everything about Dan Henderson is simply, legendary. He’s a credit to mixed martial arts, the human race, and perhaps most importantly, ‘Murica. Dan Henderson could kick a bald eagle in its little bird balls while waving a burning flag atop Mt. Rushmore and receive a Good Samaritan Award for doing so.

But every legend has to have an origin story, and for Henderson, it was the night he took out Alan Goes and Carlos Newton in back-to-back fights to win the UFC Middleweight Tournament at UFC 17: Redemption.

Relive Hendo’s epic one-night performance, complete with full videos of both fights, after the jump.

Barao has only tasted defeat once, and it was in the first fight of his career. The fact that he’s rebounded with the longest current undefeated streak in mixed martial arts — despite the fact that his first loss could have ruined his confidence forever — is absolutely amazing to me, as many young would-be prospects have crashed and burned in their debuts, never to be heard of again.

It got me thinking: What other mixed martial artists lost their first fight but then went on to have great success? I expected to bang out a list of ten fighters, but once I started doing the research, it blew my mind that some of the best fighters to ever compete in the sport, and a number of currently top 10-ranked fighters, actually lost their very first fight.

And so, I compiled a list of the top 24 MMA fighters of all time who lost their first fight. The list is based on accomplishments in the sport, overall skill level, and potential. Enjoy, and if I somehow missed somebody notable, please leave a comment below and explain why he or she should be included.

On July 26, 1996, at the age of 19 years old, Travis Fulton fought Dave Strasser in his MMA debut at Gladiators 1 in Davenport, Iowa, losing the fight via first-round submission. He then went on to win 249 fights, the most wins in mixed martial arts history. Fulton also holds the record for most fights (309) and most knockout wins (91) in MMA history.

Mind = blown.

Was Fulton a can crusher? Yes, yes he was. Or, should I say, yes he is, as he beat some nobody in his native Iowa just this past March. But you don’t win 249 MMA fights by accident, and Fulton deserves a place on this list based on volume alone.

In this clip from FUEL TV’s Ultimate Matt Hughes special, the UFC Hall of Famer (and current Vice President of Athlete Development and Government Relations) recalls his infamous welterweight title fight at UFC 34 back in November 2001, in which he defeated Carlos Newton via slam-knockout, despite being nearly finished by a triangle choke. At the time, Hughes was returning to the UFC after building up a seven-fight win streak outside of the organization, and Newton had just become champion by bulldog-choking Hughes’s homey Pat Miletich seven months earlier at UFC 31.

From the moment that Newton emerged for his pimpin’-pimpin’ walkout to the cage, Hughes wasn’t impressed. (“This guy’s off in la-la land, thinkin’ this is some entertainment show…I’m gonna mop this guy up.”) And Hughes did just that for a while, until he found Newton’s legs wrapped around his neck. As was often the case when Hughes found himself in trouble in a fight, he picked up his opponent and carried him like a bale of hay.

Hughes claims that he slammed Newton intentionally — even though it kind of looked like he just passed out on the spot — but he does admit that he was dazed afterwards, half-asleep from the affects of Newton’s triangle choke. But since Newton was completely unconscious, the belt went to the challenger. Hughes would defend the title five times during his first championship reign, including a fourth-round TKO win over Newton in a rematch the following year. Newton never fought for a UFC title again, and is currently trying to sell his afro wig on eBay.

(Come on Tim, you haven’t even read the column yet. Maybe we wrote nice things about you, okay?)

Today on the CagePotato Roundtable, we’re talking paper champs — the one-and-dones and never-shoulda-beens who weren’t quite worthy of the gold around their waist. To limit our scope a bit, we’re only focusing on major MMA promotions like the UFC (including tournament champions), PRIDE (even though all their champions were awesome), Strikeforce, the WEC, and probably Bellator and DREAM as well if anybody cared enough to mention them. Joining us this week is our dear friend Kelly Crigger, the retired solider and best-selling MMA author who’s currently elevating rugby-awareness at American Sin Bin. Read on for our picks, and please, please, please send your ideas for future Roundtable topics to tips@cagepotato.com.

Jared Jones

For four months in 2001-2002, Dave Menne — the fighter who Phil Baroni famously steamrolled at UFC 39 — was the UFC’s middleweight champion. That’s right: The belt that Anderson Silva has proudly worn for the last five-and-a-half years used to belong to this guy. Menne won the title in September 2001 by beating 5-0 newcomer Gil Castillo, and went on to compile an overall record of 2-4 in the Octagon. Gentlemen, the floor is yours. Good luck.

The worst major MMA champion of all time has to be Carlos Newton. For starters when you say your fighting style is Dragon Ball Z Jiu Jitsu to pay homage to a Japanese anime character, there’s a screw loose somewhere.

Secondly, when Newton won the UFC welterweight title, there wasn’t exactly a deep talent pool of competition. MMA was still evolving and techniques were as sound as using bubble gum on a car engine. I will admit that he beat a very experienced and talented Pat Miletich to get the strap, but that’s the lone gem in his dreadlocked crown. Today every weight class has a laundry list of accomplished fighters and an alternate list of accomplished fighters waiting in the wings in case they tweet something controversial and Mr. White fires all of them. The point is, he didn’t exactly climb a ladder of giants to get to the belt.

We caught up with Carlos Newton briefly over the weekend in Toronto at the MMA Expo and the former UFC welterweight champion surprised us with the news that he has retired.

“I’m retired,” Newton explained. “The sport just isn’t as competitive as it used to be.”

Instead of focusing on preparing to fight inside the cage, “The Ronin” says he has turned his focus on fighting for proper regulation by the people who officiate both inside and outside of it.

“I’m just concentrating on helping to improve the regulation of the sport and I’m looking into becoming a judge. I think that as fighters we have a lot more knowledge and insight into the intricacies of what’s going on in a fight than someone who has never competed. MMA judging needs fixing and I’m hoping I can help do it.”

One way of gauging the popularity of something is the growing influence it has on stand-up comedy. Case in point, the next few weeks we’ll likely see an influx of Casey Anthony jokes like we did Rep. Anthony Weiner ones the past month. If you watch much stand-up comedy, you’ll notice that more and more comedians (besides Joe Rogan) are mentioning MMA and the UFC in their routines.

That’s a pretty good indication that the sport has stepped out of the “fringe” category and into the mainstream. I can’t help but get excited every time I hear a comedian mention MMA, even if they call it, “Ultimate Fighting” and wrongly describe it as “no-holds-barred fighting.” Exposure is exposure and it means MMA is relevant in society.

The Fight Network does a decent job demonstrating the juxtaposition between the UFC 118 main and co-main events. On one had we have BJ Penn trying to regain his title from current UFC lightweight champion, Frankie Edgar who will be fighting tooth and nail to hold onto his belt and his ranking in the UFC’s 155-pound class. On the other hand, you have James Toney fighting for the pride of boxing against the sport of MMA, although his logic of what winning his fight against Randy Couture will actually prove is flawed.

In the videos above and below, a variety of professional boxers and mixed martial artists (as well as a smattering of actors sprinkled in for good measure) weigh in on this weekend’s two biggest fights.

If you can imagine a fight card populated by has-beens and no-accounts, filmed by the blind and narrated by the guys from “Flight of the Conchords” (except without the genuinely funny parts), then you have a pretty good idea what it was like to watch Impact FC’s first-ever pay-per-view on Saturday night. “The Uprising” was filled with plenty of the awkward pauses, even more awkward announcing, terrible camera work and retro graphics that we’ve come to expect from fledgling MMA promotions. As for the actual fighting? It played out about like you might have predicted, too.

Indeed when, just a few moments into the broadcast, nattily attired but totally incompetent ring announcer James White forgot his lines midway through his introductory remarks and had to stop cold to confess he’d drawn a blank, you knew it was going to be a long night. Despite how many times we were informed by the play-by-play team that the action in the cage was “thunderous” or “amazing” the show – filmed around noon local time in Sydney, Australia in a partially filled arena — felt so flat that the fighters themselves would’ve been hard-pressed to break the monotony. Luckily for them, it didn’t seem like they were trying too hard.

Mike Russell caught up with Warrior One (W-1) president Jack Bateman at the MMA Expo in Toronto last weekend to talk about his upcoming show on Saturday night and what the future holds for the burgeoning Ontario, Canada-based promotion. According to the promoter, his organization has some big plans for the rest of 2010 and beyond that includes signing the top free agents from around the world and developing the talent at home in the Great White North.

Besides their "Judgement Day" show set for this Saturday night in Laval, Quebec that features UFC and PRIDE veteran Denis Kang (32-12-1), Shooto veteran Antonio Carvalho (11-4), Zahabi MMA standout Thierry Quenneville (15-8) and the return of Ivan Menjivar (20-7), Bateman says that the promotion is planning two more events this year.

MMA pioneer Carlos Newton returned to the ‘W’ column on Saturday night at the W-1 Inception show in Gatineau, Quebec, snapping a three-fight losing skid with his KO victory over Nabil Khatib. As you can see in the video above, the Gatineau fans are awful, Newton still looks light on his feet, and he can still pound a motherfucker out when need be. Big ups to the Ronin, who increases his career record to 14-13.

Below: The Melvin Manhoef/Keijiro Maeda scrap from the K-1 World GP event in Yokohama on Saturday, in which the usually-sturdy Manhoef got Kimbo Slice’d by a short right hand from the retreating Japanese fighter. Fans have been calling this one suspicious, but it’s more likely that Maeda just found Melvin’s button.

After the jump:Houston Alexander stops by the Sport Science lab to test the effects of adrenaline on punching power. The verdict? Houston hits like a hammer in his normal state, and puts out a full 1,000 pounds of force after trainer Mick Doyle provokes him into insanity. And that’s before the needles come out…